GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo.—Time has run out on a congressional ban on issuing final regulations for oil shale development in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
The one-year moratorium on issuing the regulations expired Tuesday and efforts to extend it have failed.
Colorado Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar supported the moratorium. They say questions about the potential economic and environmental impacts and the feasibility of commercial-scale oil shale development haven’t been answered.
The three have said they will fight to “restore an orderly process for oil shale development” when Congress reconvenes in January.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved a plan to open nearly 2 million acres of public land to development and is expected to issue final oil shale regulations later this year. The agency has said it could be several years before commercial development occurs and that more in-depth analyses will be done as specific projects are approved.
The shale in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming is thought to contain 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The catch is the technology to squeeze the oil out of the rock is still experimental and commercial production is likely at least a decade off.
Coloradans who lived through the oil shale bust of the 1980s are leery of the kind of economic devastation that occurred when the fledgling industry failed despite huge government subsidies. They refer to “Black Sunday,” when Exxon closed its $5 billion oil shale project near Parachute on May 2, 1982, putting 2,200 people out of work.
Information from: Post Independent,
